Thoughts on Mario Kart 8 DLC Wave 2
Nintendo dropped the Mario Kart 8 DLC Wave 2 on Thursday, August 4th 2022. This was a welcome addition to the game and personally, a nice surprise for me as I didn’t find out about wave 2 until release day. Releasing every few months up to and including 2023, the Mario Kart 8 DLC keeps things fresh by giving gamers 8 additional tracks to race on.
This time around, Nintendo has offered up the following tracks across two cups:
Turnip Cup
New York Minute (Mario Kart Tour)
Mario Circuit 3 (Super Mario Kart)
Kalimari Desert (Nintendo 64)
Waluigi Pinball (Nintendo DS)
Propeller Cup
Sydney Sprint (Mario Kart Tour)
Snow Land (Mario Kart Super Circuit)
Mushroom Gorge (Mario Kart Wii)
Sky-High Sundae (Mario Kart Tour - coming soon)
Now, if you’re like me and haven’t played much of Mario Kart Tour, then the Tour tracks are basically like brand new tracks and very fun to experience for the first time on Switch. They look gorgeous and the way that each lap changes slightly from the previous ones is a nice change from older Mario Kart tracks.
The fact that Nintendo is remastering all of these old tracks from previous Mario Kart game is a stroke of genius, as it will introduce players to older tracks which they never got to experience if they did not own older systems. For me, personally i didn’t own a SNES or a Gameboy Advance, so some of these remasters are my first ever time experiencing the tracks.
The two tracks that stand out the most for me and are my personal favourites would have to be Kalimari Desert (Nintendo 64) and Waluigi Pinball (Nintendo DS). Having grown up with the Nintendo 64 as our family console - Kalimari Desert holds a lot of nostalgia for me. The remaster is beautiful and the changes Nintendo made in lap 2 were amazing! Waluigi Pinball held a lot of fun memories for me from when I used to play Mario Kart DS with friends.
The Mario Kart 8 Expansion Pass DLC is available to purchase from the Nintendo eshop for $24.99. Alternatively, it is included in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack for subscribers at no extra cost.